Money Green Life

There was a Bloomberg article that was released yesterday indicating that Apple will launch iPhones under Verizon Wireless in January, 2011. We all anticipated this move, whether it be soon or much later in 2012 when AT&T exclusive agreement runs out. One of the most common complaints iPhone users have now are the dropped calls and weak 3G signals. I am a current iPhone user and even stood in the line for 10 hours to get my iPhone 4 and I get dropped calls at least 1 time every day. Other friends have complained that they started experiencing dropped calls as soon as they switched over to the iPhone. It’s very frustrating. It’s also very frustrating when I have zero signal on my iPhone and my friend has full signal bars on his phone. When I ask him who his carrier is, he says Verizon and then starts laughing at me for having no signal on my phone.

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On Tuesday, Hulu announced the launch of their paid subscription service. The service runs at $9.99 per month and subscribers can watch most of recent TV shows from the current season, along with episodes of past seasons, including the popular shows such as Glee, Office, and House among others from ABC, NBC, and Fox. At $9.99, the service becomes affordable and I know for  fact that more people than not are willing to pay for the subscription to watch their favorite TV shows at any time they want. Hulu’s On-Demand subscription service will compete with streaming content of offered by Netflix. Netflix currently does not offer too many of the popular current network TV shows so Hulu will have an advantage over Netflix in this category.

Which is better?

I still believe Netflix has a huge edge of Hulu. Netflix is more affordable at $8.99/mo and you still receive unlimited DVD rental included with your service. Netflix also have blue-ray players and playstation,  Wii consoles and even Roku media players to help you stream content onto your TV. However, Hulu does have plans to launch their service to be compatible with playstation in the future. Hulu also will still have advertisement in their streaming content. This is a huge negative for viewers especially since they are actually paying for the content. Netflix has no advertisement in their streaming content.

Hulu’s service is currently available by invitation only and has plans to release to the entire public in the near future.

What will you do?

When it becomes available to everyone, will you pay for their currently free content? I probably won’t.

Refer to my other Netflix posts:

Netflix Streaming Review: Save Money With Netflix
Roku Becomes Friendlier with Netflix
Use Your Wii To Stream Netflix, Save 10%
Netflix Reaches 15 Million Subscribers

The war is on. Today, as I was driving to work, I learned over the radio that Barnes and Noble has dropped their price on the eReader, Nook to $199, a drop of $60! In response to that, Amazon lowered the price of their eReader, Kindle to $189 within only couple hours of Barnes and Noble price drop. So, who wins here? We DO!

As consumers, we hate monopoly. When there’s competition, prices become competitive as each vendor tries to outdo each other to win customers. Which one is better though?

Comparing the most important features, it looks like the Kindle is the clear winner! The cost is less, weighs less, and battery life is longer than the Nook.

However, Nook also has one big advantage over the Kindle. With the Nook, you can read free ebooks at your local brick and mortar Barnes and Noble stores. You can’t do that with the Kindle.

What about the iPad? Anyone have a success story with their iPads?

It took me a while, but I finally pre-ordered my iPhone 4. I tried to do it at Apple’s website but nothing was working. Kept on getting error messages. But when I read some forums, people were having some success pre-ordering through Apple Store App on iPhone. So I quickly installed the App for free and went ahead to start the ordering process. The process couldn’t have been easier. I just picked my store location and selected the iphone and that was it!

It now appears that the website is working now as I was just able to get passed the error messages I was getting earlier. So go ahead and reserve yours! Don’t you want yours right away like all the other Apple product fanatics?

**Update (June 24, 2010)** 10% sale is STILL ongoing. Simply use promo code “save” at checkout. “xrdeal” is not live anymore.

If you love watching streaming Netflix on your computer, why not go one step further and watch it on your TV? If you don’t already have PS3 or Wii or other Netflix streaming capability equipment, consider using a Roku Media Player. It practically does everything you want to play streaming Netflix on your TV. Right now as Father’s Day promotion, Roku is offering 10% discount on their top model, Roku HD-XR Player. Just use the code XRDEAL when you check out. If you’re not familiar with streaming Netflix, you can read my Netflix Review written in a previous post.

As I’ve written previously, I don’t think a roku player is necessary when you already have a laptop. With a laptop, you can simply connect it to your TV with an HDMI cable and you have an instant media player. But if you’re a tech savvy person, a roku player might be the next best thing to own. The HD-XR model starts at $129.99. The promotion ends June 20, 2010 so be sure to act before then.